This Saturday marks the 40th anniversary of Woodstock - a festival of peace love and understanding. I was working in the 35" mill at Cooperweld Steel that summer, throwing chains around red hot ingots of steel after they immerged from the furnace. There was very little of any of the aforementioned qualities to be found at the 'weld, but, after hours, it was very possible to find some combination of sex, drugs and rock & roll. So while I wasn't there, I felt very much like a participant in the event.I’m going to be gone much of August so this might be my last post this month. I’d be interested to hear what the rest of you were doing in August 1969. Please share your stories.
Posts
40 comments:
I went to the Newport Folk Festival which was the week before Woodstock. Big Momma Thornton, Arlo Guthrie, Johnny Cash... I clearly remember being handed a flier advertising Woodstock. My thought was that it would be impossible to line up all the acts they had on the bill. So I missed Richie Havens and Freedom!
Summer of 69 had me working as an orderly at Fairview Hospital in Great Barrington, MA. The hope was that I meet Bill Pepi for the event. It never happened. I couldn't get the time off.
One of my charges was a men's ward with 4 beds and mainly old men on their way out. One such fellow, a stately patrician man, was reputed to have been an architect at the 39 World's Fair. His wife was also in the hospital but in another room. She was difficult. He was out of it, reciting nursery rhymes at times. Once, in what appeared to be a moment of clarity, he looked up at me in my white medical tunic and asked, "Harvard or Yale?"
Summer of '69 I was in California staying with a girlfriend in Oakland and generally doing the whole San Francisco deal including attending a memorable free concert by the Dead at Berkeley where the Merry Pranksters were dispensing acid from water pistols into the mouths of the willing. Intending to get back in time for the Woodstock Festival, my friend Kent and I were on the way back East in his Ford Econoline van named Optimum with two hitchhikers (runaways) that we had picked up somewhere in Kansas. We had every intention of heading to the Festival but were deterred by news reports of massive traffic jams, so we headed South to Charlottesville instead.
RIP LES PAUL
The summer of '69 found me trying (successfully) to get into Hiram college so I could maintain my 2-S deferrment. It was also the summer that I was living in Charlottesville, VA when the remnants of Hurricane Camille decided to drop close to 3 feet of rain on the impoverished Nelson County, VA. I spent the month of August on work crews trying to find bodies and generally digging people out of an incredible mess.
What a great post idea. If there are any people more self-absorbed and wanting to talk about themselves I challenge them to define a group other than our generation.
I was preparing to be married three months hence in Charleston (yes, South of Broad) and was caught up in my pink and green ribbons, flowers, bridesmaids and Tiffany.
At the same time my BFF, AY, was also at Time Inc. with her black leather and drugs. How is it possible we became and have remained friends?
I was 6. I think I was in Martha's Vineyard....my parents might have been at an Ian and Sylvia concert.
This weekend...I'm going barefoot...skipping showers and playing lots of Cat Stephens, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor.
Until I have to clean up for a sunday biz trip.
I may have missed out, but...I have a hippie heart.
ps---If you haven't seen the movie, "A Walk on the Moon" it's a must must must rent...takes place in and around Woodstock. Plus, the soundtrack is fabulous!
"The blouse man is on the premises."
Eastwood Mall working at the men's clothing store (big prize if you remember the store's name) on summer break from Michigan State. Worked with one of the Doyles - can't remember which one - and I vaguely remember that a group was heading to Woodstock but my parents wouldn't let me go. No kidding. 40 years later my only son is home between his freshman and sophomore year. Wonder if I could have kept him from going?
Summer of '69. My favorite Byran Adams song! Acid in water pistols? Awesome.
I wont be able to tell my story til the image of the macho man throwing steel chain & seeking sex & drugs after work leaves my brain.
I was living in a group house in College Park, MD. Two of the people went up. One roommate's folks lived in Newburg NY. They were going to stay with his parents and go over each day. I said I didn't want to go that far and I couldn't get off my summer job working for a landscaping company...we all were English speakers on the crew back then.
The two of them came back a few days later and said I was so smart not to go as it was pure chaos and they never got back to Mike's folks house.
Then the movie came out and both of them went around bragging about how they were at Woodstock. Although they had no memory of CSN performing until they saw the movie. I guess they got the bad acid.
i spent part of those days with a gal named nanci and part with gaga in a field somewhere between warren and garretsville. not an alkaline day to be sure. makes me want to go to the desert,see freddie and psychedelicize. been too long. don't trust anyone over thirty. good christ. my kids are over thirty now. spent the day at the beach and will follow that for the woodstock anniversary days. those tunes are still pretty damn good. put a decent buzz on and think of those times. good days,but so are these. happy anniversary.
Gaga -- are you over it yet? please tell us what you were doing? or at least who.
some people responded on facebook so i'm going to copy and paste them back here -- se below.
Working the 3-11 shift in ER at Trumbull Memorial Hospital, living with parents... Had just returned from visiting friends in Boston where we watched men on the moon...wondering what's Woodstock, what's next?
Fri at 9:37pm
I was teaching swimming in Sag Harbor for $125 a week and didn't dare blow off the job to head to Woodstock with Cousin Tom in his VW bus. We still regret it.
My Woodstock memories are mundane (working at a church camp north of Columbus, didn't hear much), but today I had the fun experience of listening to a 40th anniversary show driving on the Motorway between Salzburg and Munich. It sounded something like this:
sprechen von krieg der himmel "COUNTRY JOE MCDONALD" deutsch von uber drucken zimmer "FISH CHEER"."
Nanci, that was me a month earlier (sans the grass). I listened to the Moonwalk in July driving south on I-71 late at night (returning to work from a visit to my girlfriend in Ashtabula). The best reception I got was a station in Venezuela, so I listened to the broadcast in Spanish.
No offense nancy, but i think i was the one between your feet and tspain was on the receiving end of our tour. hope all is good with you and your loved ones. i certainly enjoyed those days with you and all of our compadres. no offense, honest. see you at the next get-together in warren."
This may or may not have been how it happened. This is how I remember it. I know for sure that I'm one who does'nt remember it & was'nt there. We had heard that a concert in New York with some great acts was scheduled. But after weighing the pros & cons decided it was too much of a hassle & oped for a weekend in Columbus. Yes there was: a VW , pot ,( we still owe for the weed), acid , drinking , bells , beads , free love , & plenty of missing brain cells all scattered alone Ohio route 71, not upstate NY.
I thought it was such a good idea I'm spending this aniversary weekend in Cbus also , minus afew of the above mentioned party favors.( I dont have a VW anymore.)
I still dont trust anyone over thirty , but now I dont trust anyone under thirty either.
Still keeping the faith here brothers & sisters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqfFrCUrEbY
Here is a complete Woodstock playlist courtesy of Carolina:
http://www.artsandmusicpa.com/music_pages/woodst69songs.htm
I was working at Youngstown Sheet & Tube in the Open Hearth as a pool laborer. I worked with an old black guy who claimed we didn't put anyone on the moon that summer. All of it was filmed in Hollywood as a government plot to get peo[le to talk about something other than Vietnam
HHMMM big D version of canned heat. Well, I can see why you bartended at GOTL Swiss Chalet several summers later. Nothing like that crowd to stimulate your intellectual Panther Prowess. I was to young to be a merry prankster and visit the good Dr Timothy Leary. It was the last summer I spent in Warren as we bought a cottage in GOTL.Oh, and for all you WGH Panthers they finished the Monument made from the old school front. Looks cool, not sure worth a million plus. Hopefully, they will be using the inside for something. I have a few choice minutes of Big D playing football actually practice I think. on super 8/vhs. maybe you alumni could show it at a reunion in the building an raise some money. I think the front needs a statue of a big panther.
Was tempted to make the journey, but my wedding was days away and my mother would have freaked. In retrospect, I should have opted for sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll over the nuptials.
Oh, well, we all make bad decisions.
As far as the moon landing goes I guarantee it happened. Thanks to some microdot the Lexington Ave. Six & I watched the space craft come down. If we hadnt raised a fuss the damn thing would have landed on top of us.
The real conspiracy about the moon landing centers around why NASA destroyed the original tape. What else could they do with a video showing Neil stepping off the lander & high fiving seven long haired weirdos? If you listen to the recording of the famous first words Neil stutters just as Daff grabs him.
Sorry, I cant show the video we took that day. First, I'm legally bound not to show it til after the death of Caroline Kennedy. Secondly, I lost my BetaMax.
Fenway -- speaking of "South of Broad" you should pick up Pat Conroy's most recent book of the same name. It paints a very nice picture of Charleston.
Birdman -- I'll save Fenway from having to tell you -- her family home is in the photo on the dust jacket of the book -- second from the left.
And yet she talks to us. Go figure.
Questions: Could, & if what, if anything, get you kids to a Woodstock today??
Gaga - A good early bird special.
I attended an all day music festival this past weekend. I would love to go to Bonnaroo down in Tennessee, and would if I could find anyone close to my age that wanted to go. My nieces and nephews have gone but they didn't ask me to accompany them. So far only one person has said they would go and her husband looked at her like she farted in church. I took his look to mean I couldn't count on them.
Not sure I want to sleep on the ground; as I vowed never to do it again when discharged from the USMC, but I could do a few days at a music festival.
Bird: Halfway through SOB d'b thinks he has me figured. HA!
Fenway -- you are obviously Molly.
KG -- try the Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale. You can hear tons of music but sleep in a bed every night.
Gaga -- the same thing that got me into the Cadillac dealership
Cuz -- did you get me a WGH brick?
Big D, I gots two bricks and a window weight all from the science lab area. In my garage awaiting further instructions.
Fenway - He wishes. A Warren boy can't possibly plumb the depths of a true Charlestonian. Simply trying to figure out the different levels of crazy takes years.
I just started the book. My wife ripped out of my hands as soon as I brought it back from the bookstore on Kiawah Island.
no, i wish she was Sheba, and if she was i'd be camped out on her doorstep.
Oh, Bird, you are so right about the different levels of crazy.
d'b, can't wait to learn about Sheila and Molly!
Fenway - And believe me. I know SC crazy. I spend Christmas in Saluda, SC. It doesn't get much squirrelier than that.
Bird still got da Squirrel on da min.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3R2PgMiTvw
We need d'b to lead a discussion on EMK - the pros and cons. For my part I phoned my former husband in Mexico yesterday am (he spends the winter there). He reminded me I called him 41 years ago also very early in the am (I lived in NY, he in Boston) to tell him about Bobby. Both events still make me sob. I loved them both. Here's what being a Catholic allows: I know he's with his brothers.
He was no saint but I have been somewhat appalled at the venom towards him in emails I have received from some of my conservative friends. When Reagan passed, even my communist brother did not send out any vile emails.
I met Teddy a few times and he had that Irish charm and made me believe he actually remembered me. I do wonder though if Kennedy was not a more effective fundraiser for the GOP than his own party. Just put his name in an appeal to conservatives and the money came pouring in.
Eddie was a good boy. I hear his liver is heading for the Smithsonian. Watch for the sell off of Jamison stock. He not only joins his brothers he's tipping afew with Mary Jo again.
have a peek herelink find thisdiscover this have a peek at these guyshome
Post a Comment